Ghosts of the Past
by Mrfipp
Summary: Running through his time stream with Clara in his arms, the Doctor finds himself facing many things he did not expect to see. Things that have deeply defined his lives. (Contains references to the show, audios, books, and comics.)


This idea has been in my head for a while, so I just had to get it down. Think of it as my own little tribute to Doctor Who's 50th anniversary.

000

**Ghosts of the Past**

Really, it's not the smartest thing he's ever done. He didn't even have an exit strategy here. He's just hoping that something pops up so he can get out, but nothing like this has ever been done before, at least as far as he knows. There needs to be a way out.

He runs through his time stream, carrying Clara in his arms. She hasn't woken up since he started looking, and that must have been hours ago, but he's not really sure. It's difficult to keep track of time in here, since it's his whole lie he's running through.

Around him he sees himself. Ten previous faces, each one running towards whatever adventures they've had, the people they've met, and from the enemies they've made.

"Just a bit longer, just need to keep looking." He's not too sure if he's saying that to Clara, or himself. "Just need to…"

The dark smoky environment suddenly rumbles, and he missteps, suddenly falls forward. Clara tumbles out of his arms, and he calls out her name.

He crashes to the floor, and immediately sees that he is no longer in his time stream.

"Clara?" he asks, looking around. He doesn't see her around, but as he looks around the room he now finds himself in, he begins to recognize it.

It seems to be a control room. In front of him are several computer consoles, old ones, from Earth's eighties if he had to think. Yes, he'd been here, very long ago.

"Claarraa?" a voice says behind him. "And whoo is Claarraa?" It's flat, and monotone, bust still has a strange mixture sing-song quality to it that doesn't fit.

The Doctor stands up, and turns around to face the Cyberman that stands across from him.

It's not the one he last saw, at the Hedwick's World. It's an old model, with large clunky machinery attached to its body, and a cloth wrapped around its face. He can see the dried human hands, and can barely make out human eyes behind the eye holes.

The Doctor studies the Cyberman for a moment, wondering why it's here, before realization hits him.

"You're not real," he says, taking out the sonic screwdriver and scanning it over. He gets no results at all. "I'm in my time stream, bound to run into a few things I didn't expect."

The Cyberman opens its mouth, and doesn't close it. "We are called Cyybermen."

And then the Cyberman changes.

"We will survive. We will survive," the new Cyberman gurgles, and they're no longer in the Antarctic control room, though it's still cold.

The Doctor looks behind him, and sees the large tombs embedded into the icy wall, before turning back to the Cyberman. It's tall, and covered in more metal, its head more bullet-like.

"Yes, you always survive," the Doctor says. "And what good has that brought you?"

They're now in a spaceship control room.

The Doctor continues. "You're nothing more than tin soldiers in broken down ships, without even a planet to call home."

The Cyberman now has a larger, more square head, with a gun mounted in the forehead.

"Survival is the prime directive of the Cyberrace." It's voice is now much more human. It's very disconcerting. "As long as w survive, all else is irrelevant."

The Doctor gives a humorless laugh. "Irrelevant? You've sacrificed everything you were, the feelings of loss, and love, and joy, and hate! All of them are important."

They're on another control room, looking past the Cyberman, he sees a foreign device plugged into the console.

"And how have these feelings helped you, Doctor?" the new Cyberman says, it's flesh and bone jaw moving behind the plastic faceplate. "These feelings can only hold you back, make you weak because of how easily they can be taken advantage of."

The Cyberman changed again, with the head becoming taller, and slightly translucent. He thinks he can see a brain in there. The room has what appears to be closets lining the room. Conversion chambers.

"By removing weaknesses, only strength remains," the Cyberman says. "And with that strength, our legions will spread far across the universe."

"It's not even about survival anymore," the Doctor pointed at the Cyberman. "It's now all about conquest! That's all you are now! A virus that spreads across all of space and time, erasing populations, assimilating civilizations."

The Cyberman's head is now very reflective, and the body suit is darker in color. They're in what appears to be an airplane hanger. "We have the power to do so, Doctor. It is through the increase in our numbers, and thus our strength. The empire we will forge will not be stopped."

"Funny thing to say, especially from a race that is always struggling on the edge of extinction. You're always being hunted down."

The Cybermen that stands before him is now sleeker, with heavy armor around the shoulders. It's in front of a command chair, surrounded by large glass tubes. More conversion chambers.

"As long as there is at least one Cyberman in existence, we will always return back to power." The voice is less human now, sounds like something from a computer. "Even if we are all wiped out, there is always still a chance we will return."

"Yes," the Doctor said. "Human are odd like that, always finding ways to destroy themselves, and turning to the most extreme methods to save themselves."

"So you agree then?" The Cyberman is now large, and bulky, like a tank. "You agree that the humanity's tendency towards self-destruction must be deleted. It is the only way to survive.

They're now is what appears to be a luxurious room, one meant for socializing of higher classes. All the windows are broken.

"It's a flaw, yes. But one that makes them all the more precious. Flaws and strengths, each one varying with each person. Each one unique. I'd rather have that, then let you erase everything about them, leaving whatever little remains to be just data stored away into a cybernetic brain."

"All consciousnesses become part of the Cyberrace." It's now sleeker, with a large glowing light on its chest. The last version he's encountered, only a few weeks ago. "Individual thought only leads to destruction. If all submit to upgrading, the flaws of humanity will be erased."

They're now in the tombs that he first met the Cyber-Planner, not so long ago.

The Doctor rubs with face with one hand, with it briefly lingering on the side of his face, making sure there's nothing there. "This is why I hate most computers," he growled. "No imagination, just an idea that they refuse to budge on because of whatever warped logic they have stuck in their electronic brains." He looks up, and stares the Cyberman in its dark, round eyes. "No matter what I say, you always reply with the same response."

Suddenly, he's now surrounded by every model of Cyberman he's ever encountered. From Antarctica, the place he first regenerated, to Hedgewick's World, where he almost became one.

"You belong to us," each Cyberman droned. "You belong to us."

The Doctor looked around at the Cybermen that were around him, observing the changes that they've undergone from model to model. He briefly wonder just how much further they will go.

They suddenly start to fade away, along with the dark room, and his head begins to throb. It starts off mild, but soon gets much worse, and even begins to hurt. Grabbing his head, his head, he hissed in pain as he felt his head was about to split open. It didn't last long though, and after only a few seconds, it was gone.

Opening his eyes, he saw that the room had completely changed.

It was the TARDIS console room. The TARDIS' default console room.

"Wow," he said, looking around the room. "Haven't seen you in a while." White walls with large roundels built into them, various computer banks in the back. He turned around to see the large doors that lead to the outside, and the homely touches he had made, the comfortable wooden chair and the hat rack, stand where they did centuries ago.

Turning around again, he sees the console itself. It's a bit smaller then what he's using now, and the controls are much less complicated. He think back to the difficulty he used to have back then, simply trying to figure out how to fly the thin back then. Now it all looks so simply, that he could easily fly it in his sleep.

He really misses those days.

With a smile on his face, he rushes up to the controls, and begins to flick levels and push buttons and flip switches.

The console suddenly shifts, the configurations changing to a degree that would baffle anyone else but him. He always knows what is what.

He notices that he is no longer in the TARDIS, which is now standing in a corner, but in a workshop. The table is covered in test tubes, and beakers, and other very sciency things that he had loved doing back then.

The Doctor straightens up, and gently places his hand on the console.

"Nine-hundred years, right?" he says to himself. "Maybe give or take a century or two. I honestly don't know anymore. Lost count a long time ago."

The room is much smaller now, everything now covered in wood paneling.

He leans back on the railings that appeared behind him, and looks up at the ceiling.

"Awful long time, even for a Time Lord. I don't think any TARDIS has been in service for that long. Aren't they supposed to be decommissioned after five-hundred years or something?"

The rooms is white again. There are several white pillars embedded into the walls, and the console itself is wider, with more advanced controls on the layout.

"That's a funny thing if you ask me." He smiles. "A Type-40 TT Capsule outlive every other model of TARDIS ever made. Even those Type-113's they began producing at the end. None of them can even remotely compare to what you've seen and done."

He's now in a much larger room with a Victorian-Gothic feel to it, with a great number of object that don't look like they belong in a spaceship surrounding him. Four large iron girders stand from the floor around the console and reach to the ceiling.

"Oh I'd like to hear them now!" The Doctor clapped his hands once and spun around, facing all the chairs, and gramophones, and the Volkswagen Beetle that he's never been sure how he actually acquired. "They were always making fun of you, calling you junk, and rundown, and how I should get a new one! But you! You're a Classic!"

He spins around, and the console is a mess. The controls looks like jury-rigged whatever they could find in the hopes it could work. The paneling is rough, coral like, and there is iron grating beneath his feet.

"You've seen more that anything else. Been to the end of the universe, to the beginning of time. The only constant thing I've ever hand.."

He reaches down, and plays down a hand on the console. It now got all sorts of bits, and bobs, but they look more like a sort of chaos that has an idea to it. The Doctor begins to circle to console, his footsteps echoing on the glass floor

"Even I've changed a great deal since then. You've always been with me, and you'll always be." He suddenly frowns. "I saw my future, where I'll end up. Once you see that, it's set in stone."

He turns around, and the console room is darker, looking more like a proper spaceship than it has in centuries. He's rather fond on what he's using now, it's a retro sort of thing that he's been missing for a long time.

"But no matter how that story ends, everything before that is more important. All the things we've yet to do, or seen, or meet…" He smiles, it's small, but it grows until its across his face, and turns back to the console. "I can't wait for it all.

The Doctor then pulls a lever, and the sound that he loves starts to come to life.

The pain then returns, and everything starts to fade away again. Again, it's not too long, and soon everything come back to focus.

He wishes it didn't.

There nothing too special about the hallway itself. It's wide, and there's a door behind him. He's seen countless like to before. What makes him hate it is who he's sharing it with.

It's a Dalek. This is where he first met the Daleks so long ago.

"IDENTIFY YOURSELF!" it says, the voice at a higher pitch that what he's been hearing recently.

"The Doctor," the Doctor replies, staring it straight in the eyestalk. It's small, with blue bumps on a silver casing.

"THE DOCTOR IS AN EMENY OF THE DALEKS!" The Dalek is now slightly darker in color, and the room is much smaller. It's covered in dust and cobwebs.

"Still recognize me then, eh?" The Doctor raises his arms in a gesture, and begins to circle around the Dalek. It's eyestalk follows him. "Despite the different face, you still manage to know exactly know who I am!"

"THE DALEKS WILL DESTORY THE DOCTOR!" It's now larger, and black, with yellow bumps, grills and head. A Dalek Supreme. The Doctor sees his breathe as they stand in the large, icy cave.

"Yes, yes." The Doctor suddenly stops and looks back to the Daleks. "You keep saying that, but you know what? I'm still here! How many Daleks can say the same thing?" his voice is growling now.

"I would not worry too much about that Doctor. While it is true that you've destroyed a countless number of my creations, more will always take their place. We only need to destroy you once, and our greatest victory is achieved."

The Dalek, which is now dark grey with black bumps, is now the least important thing in the universe.

Davros sits across from the Doctor.

"I could have ended it all though," the Doctor says. He now notices two wires, not touching, at his feet.

"You've had more than enough opportunities to end the Daleks, Doctor," Davros continues. "Yet, you let your own sense of morality hold you back, time and time again."

They're now in a laboratory, it's white with complicated machines around them. The Dalek is unchanged. Davros deeply chuckles. The Doctor wishes he had pulled that trigger.

"I'm still trying to make up for it," the Doctor says, his voice low. "Trying to keep down the Dalek population when I can."

"But there will always be Daleks, Doctor, as long as I'm around to make them."

The lab is different. It's darker, and looks more like a crypt.

The Dalek is now white, with gold bumps and grills.

Davros raises his metal hand, index finger pointed up. "The Daleks will never die out, Doctor, and neither will I! There will always be a way for us to survive, and continue on what we've set on doing!"

"Well, except when you inevitably turn on yourselves. Again." The Doctor gives a half-smile.

They're now in a dark basement.

The Dalek is larger, the eyestalk, gun stick and plunger are removed, and in their place is a single, massive cannon. He can feel the radiation come off the Special Weapons Dalek from here.

"Do no talk to me like that, Doctor!" Davros hisses. His chair is different. It's white and gold, with a massive dome surrounding his body, and wires plugged in everywhere below the neck. "Those were minor setback and flaws! Eventually, they will be dealt with, and all Daleks will have total, and absolute obedience for me, and me alone!"

"Really?" the Doctor replies. "Are you so certain?"

"Even without Davros, the Daleks will ensure your destruction, Doctor." The Dalek is now dark blue, its neck region longer, with two rings crisscrossing it. "Even without actually killing you, we've broken you enough times," the Dalek Time Controller says. He really hates that kind of voice, with that kind of self-control, coming from a Dalek.

They're now on a Dalek battle cruiser. Outside he can hear a massive storm, one so powerful it will decimate a planet.

Davros wasn't here when this happened, but he doesn't think that the point. Prior to the War, this was his greatest defeat.

"Just how long do you think you'll be able to endure, Doctor?" Davros asks, now back sitting in his usual chair.

"As long as I need."

They're now is a small, dark room. There's a lever to his left that he took too much enjoyment in pulling.

"THE DALEKS WILL SURVIVE!" It's a drone again. A heavy, sturdy bronze drone. "EVERYTHING YOU DO TO STOP US WILL BE IN VAIN."

"Despite your countless small victories, we always endure," Davros continues. "You may save one race, a planet, maybe even a galaxy, but you are only delaying the inevitable!"

"And what would that be?" the Doctor asks.

The control room is dark, with computer terminals fit for Daleks around them. The Dalek itself is a Supreme again, a large red one with added bronze armor around the neck region.

"ALL REALITY WILL SUBMIT TO THE DALEKS!" the Supreme groans out.

"There is no denying this victory, Doctor!" Davros yells, his breathing getting heavy. "For all your attempts, you've never once been able to put a stop to the Daleks!"

"Then I'll just have to try harder!" the Doctor yells, rushing towards Davros, leaning down to face the Kaled in the face. "I'm the Doctor, I never give up."

"That is correct, Doctor." It's a Dalek voice, but it's too calm, and methodical. The Doctor looks up and sees the Dalek Prime Minister, its tentacles writing in its glass tube. "You are by far the most relentless monster the Daleks have ever face. The names we have given you reflect this rather well."

"THE ONCOMING STORM, THE DESTORYER OF WORLDS," says the towering, white Dalek Supreme. "THE PREDATOR OF THE DALEKS."

He's in the center of the Dalek Parliament. The entire auditorium is filled with every single Dalek he's ever seen.

"You will die, Doctor!" Davros' voice raises until he's shouting. "And when that happens, there will be nothing to stop the Daleks from TOTAL EXTERMINATION OF THE ENITRE UNIVERSE AND ALL WHO EXIST WITHIN IT!"

"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" the Daleks start loudly chanting.

The Doctor has never been more sickened by anything in his life.

He's very grateful when the pain in his head returns and makes it all go away.

It fades again, and he's now in the TARDIS again. It's not the control room, but it's still a room on the TARDIS. It's a large, circular room, with dozens of doors lining the walls. On each door, there's a name.

"I thought you said you deleted this room, Grandfather."

There are a lot of things he wants to say, but he doesn't. That's not really Susan. It's simply his history being reflected back on him.

"I did," he says softly, turning to Susan. "I did delete it." The Doctor then looks around the door she's standing in front of. It has her name on it. "But, it seems I'm just a lonely old man who can't let go of things. Didn't take too long before I ended up restoring it."

"So there's one for each of us then?" It's now Jamie he's speaking too. "Do you really have a room for all the people that you've traveled with in the TARDIS?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Yes. Everyone of you. I keep your rooms in this area, as a sort of reminder, I guess. I don't know."

"I never thought of you as the sentimental-type, Doctor." Jamie's now been replaced with the Brigadier. "Back in your UNIT days you always seemed to want off as soon as possible. I honestly thought after you regenerated, that we would never see you again."

"You might have not have. Usually, when I leave you people, I don't come back. I'll think about you from time to time, but I never see you again."

"Except when you do," Sarah Jane says. "Sometimes you do see us again. It may not last long, maybe for only a single adventure, but sometimes we do see you after we've said our goodbyes."

The Doctor laughs to himself. "I do sometimes end up meeting you again. It doesn't happen too often though, and I know it's even less likely to happen again."

"Is that why you try to hang on to us?" Adric asks. "Because you know, that one day, will we one day all leave you, and you'll never see us again?"

He's silent for a moment. "Maybe. I try to relish the moments we have, but like you said, they won't last forever."

"Then why do you keep inviting us along with you?" asks Peri. "If you know that you'll just end up alone in your box, why even bother?"

Again, the Doctor is momentarily silent, and he frowns. "Because I need you. Even if it's for a short while, I know I wouldn't be what I am without you."

Ace speaks up. "So, where do you think you'd be otherwise? If you didn't kidnap two schoolteachers, where would you have ended up?"

The Doctor rubs his hand through his hair, and turns away. "I think, if I never met any of you, I'd be a very lonely old man. Even more than I am now. But you…" He's not sure how to say what he wants to say the next bit.

"We bring out the best in you?" Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Charley. "There is a saying, I think, that we're made out of the encounters we have with other people?"

He turns back to her. "A man in the sum of his memories. A Time Lord even more so. Those memories I have, good and bad, all involve you. Without them, I'd be nothing."

"Less than nothing, maybe," Rose says. "All you'd be is a man, sitting on a cloud, watching the world below. Never doing anything to make it better."

The Doctor looks down. "I gave up that time. I truly stopped caring. What was the point?"

"You don't need someone to hold you back, but to keep you going." He looks up, and he sees Donna. "You can do amazing things, like bring out the best in us, but it looks like all you need is someone to do it with."

He smile, it starts out small, but it slowly grows. "The universe is a much better place when you have someone to share it with."

"Don't be alone, Doctor." Amy then starts walking to his left, until she's in front of another door. It's labeled 'Amy and Rory'. "Everyone needs someone they can count on. A best friend that they can be there for, who can also be there for them when they need them most." She looks at the door, before placing her hand on the label.

She then turns around, and now she's Clara. Again, not really the person she looks like, but it's only his history.

"One day," she says, turning her head as she scans the room. "There'll be a door with my name on it, won't there?"

"…Yes."

"And one day, you find someone else to travel with, and all I'll be is a ghost in these hallways, and your memories."

The Doctor looks down, facing away from her.

Clara then steps up to the Doctor, until she right in front of him.

She smiles. "Then, I guess the only thing we can do until then is enjoy the time we've got together. We won't have forever, so might as well make the best of it."

The Doctor looks up to her, and returns the smile. "It's a time machine. The subject of 'time' is a very flexible thing."

"Only got one life, well, technically, so might as well make the best of it."

He grins, and she grins back.

These people. How much can he love them?

And then the pain in his head starts up again, and Clara's gone. At this point, he's not too bothered by it anymore, it's more inconvenient than anything.

When everything clears, he's in a console room again, and a default desktop by the look of it. It's not his though, the lighting is much darker, and dark green glows come from behind the roundels.

"So very sorry to tear you away from your pleasant little chat, Doctor." He looks over the time router, and sees the Master, who briefly, and absent-mindedly tinkers with his controls. "But surely you have a moment to spare for an old friend?" The Master looks up at the Doctor, and strokes his grey-streaked beard.

"Normally I would be delighted too." The Doctor leans over the console, and stares the Master in the eyes. "Except, you know, when they try to kill me, my friends, and half the universe on a regular basis."

"Surely, Doctor, you are still not upset over all those past incidents?"

"In my defense, you never seem to learn from all the lessons of the past."

"And in my defense, Doctor," the Master says, hunched over, and covered in a ragged black cloak. "You never seem to stay out of my plans."

The room is dark, and a large black obelisk stands in the center of it, elevated by several platforms.

"You mean your plans of conquest and immortality?" the Doctor quipped. "I don't know. All seems a bit stale after the first few centuries. I think you should try something new. Maybe become a fisherman. Catch some fish. Make a living off the land. Or, sea."

"And maybe I can use you as bait." The Doctor can see the burnt, and rotted flesh beneath the hood. "But I'm only certain that you would find some measure to get in my way."

The Doctor adjusts his bowtie with one hand. "Only a suggestion."

The Master answers back with a deep chuckle. Despite the explosions, and smoke and fire that dying from the dying wasteland, the Doctor could clearly see his dark velvet suit, and his trim black beard.

"Oh my dear Doctor," the Master laughs. "If only things were that simple, but alas, they are not. For all the trouble we seem to cause each other, we do seem to compliment each other rather well, don't you think?" 

"I'd say we go together as well as oil and water." The Doctor then began to shake his head. "No-no-no. More like oil and fire. And then more water to douse the fire."

"But despite how well we get along, we always seem to at each other's throats." The Doctor remembers the Master is speaking through a stolen mouth. "But somehow we always manage to live through these squabbles. Despite all the trouble we cause one another, we always manage to walk away."

"Me, for the most part. Nasty fall. As for you," the Doctor rolls his eyes. "Let's just say that you always seem to get the worst of it."

"But despite that, I'm still around!" the Master says through another stolen mouth. They now stand in a large, and majestic room, with the massive round stone structure to the side. "I'm indestructible, you should be well aware of that by now."

"And that's only because you steal, and kill, and destroy anyone in your path who gets in your way. As long as someone can act as a receptacle for your evil, you don't care who, you'll just take everything you can from them."

The Master simply looks at the Doctor for a moment, before he takes off his sunglasses, showing acidic green eyes. "Life is wasted on the living. I mean, what better use of someone's life than to extend mine. It's not like their's was important of anything."

"But that was only a small handful. You killed far more for the fun of it," The Doctor continued to glare at the Master.

"I suppose you're right on that matter." The Master is now much older looking, a kindly old professor sort of man. They now stand in a laboratory, cluttered with machines assembled through whatever means were available. "I suppose, in the end, things worked out rather well or us. After that mess the Time Lords got themselves into, we managed to make things work for us."

"You have a funny way of thinking that." The Doctor sighed, a very tired sigh. "Things never work out well when it comes to us. They never do."

"Well we have had a rough history together. Can you honestly think things would turn out any better than they did?" The Master turns his back to the Doctor. "Unless…"

"Unless what?"

The Master turns to the Doctor, now dressed in a dark suit, wearing the most recent face he's seen. "Unless you think I'm still alive?" He frowns and walks towards the Doctor, across the meeting room that sits thousands of feet above the ground, until their faces are only inches apart. "You think I'm still out there, don't you? That I'm wreaking havoc, killing masses, trying to conquer entire worlds? Is that what you really think?"

The Doctor slightly closed the distance. "Last time I saw you, you were expending your very life force to kill the most powerful Time Lord in history, all while a massive time lock was sealing off one of the most devastating events in the universe." The Doctor smirked. "I know you too well to say that you wouldn't let something like that incontinence you."

The Master suddenly grinned and gave a dark laugh. "Maybe the next time we meet, I'll have that rubbish beard you hate so must."

The Doctor glared. "Can't wait."

The maniacal laughter is then drowned out through massive pain in his head. He clutches his head and falls to his knees, and the pain thunders on behind his eyes. There's nothing to hear anymore. Except for the voices. His voices.

"_We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know. It was the best. A daft old man who stole a magic box, and ran away."_

"_If you live long enough, Lazuras, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone."_

"_Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once, EVERYBODY LIVES!"_

"_Because I'm the Doctor, and whatever happens, whatever the odds, I never-ever ever give up."_

"_I am more than just another Time Lord."_

"_Ten million years of absolute power! That's what it takes to be really corrupt!"_

"_The story changes, but the end remains the same."_

"_You may be A doctor, but I'm THE Doctor. The definite article you might say."_

"_Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened you know, it about being afraid, and doing what you have to do anyway."_

"_There are some corners of the universe which have the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought."_

"_Always search for truth. My truth is in the stars."_

The pain soon fades, but it never quite leaves. His visions returns, and he can see the TARDIS in front of him. He also sees the thick snowy landscape around him, and the thick blizzard that bites at his skin.

"It's strange how it all started out, hm?" The Doctor turns around, and sees himself, standing in the snow. A much younger, older looking face looks back at him. "We left Gallifrey because we felt that there was more to the universe than what could simply obverse." He then laughed. It was delightful, joyful laugh that reminded people that this was a man who enjoyed life to the fullest. "Then we went to that junkyard, and everything truly began."

Everything changed. The snow was gone, replaced with a dark room. He couldn't see any walls, or floors, or ceiling. This was a room to pass judgment.

"And it was fun for a long time, if I say so myself," the younger Doctor says, now a bit older, with a different face. His comical smile turned into a serious frown. "Until the Time Lords came. There were never any fun those Time Lords. They could have done so much more, but they never really saw the point." The younger Doctor tugs at his bowtie. The older Doctor always thought it was a fetching bowtie. "But sometimes," he says, smiling again, "what can you do?"

They're now in a dark cave, with a massive staircase in front of him, with giant blue crystal growing out of the walls.

"But we've always tried to make the best of what we've had, no matter how bad it was." The younger Doctor has changed again. "I know we always made a fuss about the hand we were dealt, but the truth is that there are many things about what's happened that we wouldn't change." The younger Doctor dusts off his velvet jacket. "Always tried to not regret what's happened."

"And why should we!" He's changed again, and now they're standing on a catwalk, hundreds of feet above the ground. "Life's much too short, even for a Time Lord, to wallow around on the bad things we've done. Yes, things could be better, but no sense in spending too much time on it!" The younger Doctor holds out a hand, and offers a paper bag filled with small candies. "Jelly babies?" he asks.

"No? Maybe later." Another change, and he draws back the cricket ball. "But a positive outlook on life doesn't always changes things." They're surrounded by mud and dirt, and all of a sudden it's all exploding all around them. "Bad thing can always happen, even if we try our hardest, push ourselves to limit, and still achieve nothing." He takes a deep breath, and sighs. "It's time like that, do we appreciate what we have more."

Another change. The younger Doctor is different again, and now they are now standing next to a large white room, next to a large inverted cone in the floor. "But none the less we keep moving forward," the younger Doctor says. "But despite what happens, we cannot be held back by these tragedies. If we let ourselves fall too deeply into what we've lost, we can never appreciate what we've had, or even worst, close ourselves up to what we can gain." The younger Doctor grips the lapels of his colors coat, and looks at his older-self.

The younger Doctor's goes through another change, and now they're standing in a dark alleyway, filled with trash and other sorts of rubbish. "But things have a nasty habit of coming back at us, don't they?" the younger Doctor asks, leaning on his umbrella. "We can plan, and think and imagine what our future will be like, but we know better that reality is not as kind as the fantasies in our head. Sometimes people can get hurt by our good intentions."

Suddenly there's fire, and smoke, and now they're standing in the ruins of a massive cathedral-like room. His younger self stands in the middle of the rubble, wearing a dark-blue leather jacket he always hated. "And sometimes people die, and certain wars twist, and pervert, and destroy entire timelines," the younger Doctor harshly speaks. He looked so much older, and tired than he ever did with that face. "It's enough to make you think, huh? Everything we've done, the people we've met, the foes we've fought, the places we've been too…" He let the works hang over them for a moment. "In the end, was any of it actually important?"

"But we're just left to wonder that, aren't we?" The room is dark, and they're surrounded by computer banks connected to thick cables that spill onto the floor. This younger Doctor looks more comfortable in leather. "Can't know what's at the end of the line, or else we might not like what we find. So then we're just left to live, moment by moment until we get there."

"And then what do we end up finding?" the younger Doctor asks, leaning against the large, glass booth, and looking up at the broken skylight. "Just a dead TARIDS holding our ethereal remains. The grave of the Doctor, standing tall on the fields of Trenzalore." The younger Doctor removed his glasses and turned to his older counterpart. "How long do you think it'll take us to get there? Before we run out of regenerations, we take our final breath, the hearts in our chest stop beating, or when our intellect fails us? Just how long?"

The room suddenly faded, and the older Doctor was left in darkness. The younger Doctor had been replaced with another man, a man he had never been before. He couldn't make out the man's clothes, but he could see the face clear as day. It was an older man, with graying hair.

"But still," the man said, a bit of a Scottish accent, "there are still plenty of days before we get there?"

"I know," the Doctor said, knowing who the man was. "But that's now for a while. The clock hasn't struck midnight just yet."

The man then vanished, and was replaced with the man from before. The face the Clara had not seen, the him that wasn't the Doctor.

"But there are still days coming that we've been running from," the man said, his voice rough and tired. "A day we've been running from all our lives. Our day."

The Doctor said nothing, and pretended to ignore the man, though he still considered the words he had said.

Then, like everything and everyone before him, the tired man vanished. However, he wasn't replaced with another phantom, and the Doctor found himself standing back in him time stream, with Clara, still unconscious, in his arms.

He waited for a moment, waited to see if there was anything else to be shown to him, but nothing came.

Not knowing what would come next, or where to go, the Doctor did what he'd been doing for many centuries.

He ran.

000

Please review,

Mrfipp


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